Win / lose - the debate continues
by Alan Rowley, 22nd May 2004

The debate over whether the winning draw / losing draw system should be dropped in favour of a straight win / lose system continues to rage. Yesterday, Welbeck Colliery skipper Malcolm Brown added fuel to the fire with his comments about negative games in the Nottingham Evening Post.

In the article, Brown is commenting on Welbeck's defeat at Kimberley last Saturday. He said: "It was a great game and a great advert for the game. It was nice to get a competitive game. There are too many negative ones. I think the rules need changing to a straight win or loss."

On this site, arguments for and against a change to the rules have been debated for the last few weeks. Hat_Trick_Hero started the ball rolling saying: "We played OBCC seconds on Sunday and got a winning draw yet it was possibly one of the most boring games I've played in. A combination of good bowling and poor batting left them no chance of getting the runs and until the final few overs they never really tried. This isn't having a go at the Ockbrook boys as I'm sure we'd have done the same but it just makes for crap cricket."

He continued: "Surely if it was win lose they would have made more of an effort to go for them? I spoke to both umpires who both said it should be win/lose so if the players and umpires prefer it why isn't it?"

Derbyshire Premier and County League fixture secretary Chris Higginbottom (pictured) was quick to defend the current system saying: "Win/lose cricket inevitably produces as many, if not more, boring games than the draw option. Captains have no incentive to attack, players, particularly young ones, are cornered into playing bad shots in the interests of hopeless run-chases, spinners get no real chance to ply their art properly, and it just becomes meaningless and steroetyped."

Higginbottom also pointed out that to remain a remain a Premier League, it MUST retain the draw option. He said: "It would be crazy for the feeder league to not have that option, or for the Premier League second teams to be playing cricket that does not have the option." 

Higginbottom said that the last twice that the rule changed has been proposed, it was thrown out with overwhelming majorities in both cases, and the majority increased on the second vote.

Regular reader Yorkie says: "I think the current win/lose/draw format in the DCCL works well and in my opinion it produces a much better allround standard of cricket than a simple win/lose format. Its never going to be perfect, but in my experience of leagues with a win/lose format I found the cricket was never quite as good or as competitive and importantly, young players would not get as much of a chance to play their natural game."

Yorkie went on: "At the end of the day, most of the country obviously agree that the win/lose/draw system produces the better cricket as all the top leagues I know of (certainly the ones in Yorkshire, Lancashire & Durham) have the same system in place!"

So what do you think? Should the rules be changed? Let us know in the opinion poll. You can find it in the 'Anything Goes' forum, or by clicking here.